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Chillin’ out It may be a little chilly in Noosa right now, but visitors and locals are doing their best to take advantage of the school holidays. While some are finding cosy cafes and delightful nooks to keep warm, others are still taking to the beach for some robust winter fun. Read more page 4
Baylee, 17, and Arielle, 17, from Torquay, Victoria, were on Main Beach, determined to make the most of their Noosa holiday, despite the weather. 288609
Picture: ROB MACCOLL
Great Walk outcry By Phil Jarratt
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More than 100 people braved the weekend wet in Cooroy last Saturday to attend a public forum on the controversial Cooloola Great Walk proposal and hear “some words from Kabi people who haven’t been heard yet”. Organised by environmental activist groups Protect Our Parks and Keep Cooloola Cool, the forum at Cooroy Memorial Hall devoted the first half of more than three hours to presenting an alternative First Nations’ view on the project as opposed to that of the elected Kabi Kabi Native Title Claimant Group, who are currently negotiating an Indigenous Land Use Agreement with the Queensland Government to co-manage the building and operation of a commercial “glamping” tourist attraction within the Cooloola Wilderness section of the
Great Sandy National Park, in partnership with commercial operator CABN. Since the project was first announced more than two years ago, it has attracted heavy criticism over its perceived lack of transparency, its economic sustainability, and, most frequently, over whether the Kabi Kabi people really want this to happen on land that will be theirs when the Native Title claim is finalised next April. As co-convenor Greg Wood of Protect Our Parks explained: “We’re devoting a lot of time to the Kabi viewpoint because it’s one of the most important issues of today’s meeting … The other side is relying on acquiescence and cynicism and confusion, so we want all of you to understand it and spread the word and act.” This was the first of many such calls to ac-
tion in an afternoon of highly emotive presentations that seemed to hit a chord with the audience, for whom the three-part takeaway might have been: the Great Walk project is being advanced against the wishes of the vast majority of Kabi Kabi people; if it goes ahead it is likely to destroy forever one of the great national parks of the world; and the Queensland Government is colluding with CABN and the seven members of the Kabi Kabi Claimant Group to turn Cooloola into a private profit centre. While none of the above is true, there are certainly many questions to be asked and answered about the Great Walk, a process which began (and was reported at length in this newspaper) last month at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies summit at the Sunshine Coast Conference
Centre, when Kabi Kabi Native Title applicant Brian Warner and CABN chief executive officer Michael Lamprell gave the first detailed report on the work in progress for public consumption. As reported, it raised almost as many questions as it answered, but it did reveal that the stakeholders had taken on board community and conservationist concerns and were reviewing such issues as where the camping sites would be situated, the size of their footprints and the impact of access tracks. The AIATSIS presentation was not mentioned at last Saturday’s forum, and nor was the fact that the sites at Poona Lake and in the Noosa River catchment area and close to the unique fens were being changed. Continued page 3